Incarnation: The Mystery of Christmas: Marvel of Nature [Philippians 2:7]

If you have your Bibles and I hope you do, I want to invite you to open with me to Philippians 2. The stage is set for us to dive into the second facet of the incarnation in Philippians 2. This is the passage that I want to encourage you to memorize over this Christmas season. Philippians 2:5–11 gives us a picture of who Christ is, the incarnation, God in the flesh. We talked last week about how He is the hope of glory. He is in very nature, God. Now, I want us to talk about how He is in very nature, man, not just the hope of glory, but a marvel of nature.

I want us to look at Philippians 2. We’ll start in verse 5 and just read through the passage to get an overview, get a glimpse of the context and then we’re going to focus in on one verse in particular.

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Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:6–11).

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Now we unpacked last week verse 6: “He was in very nature God, and did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” Now I want us to unpack verse 7, “But made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Phil. 2:7). Every single word in that verse is important and I want us to see what truths unfold here.

The Unique Son …

The unique Son. That’s a literal translation of John 1:14 which we looked at last week when it said, “We beheld His glory, the glory of the One and Only”—in the Greek its “monogenous”, that literally means the unique son—same type of terminology that we see in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten,” or the One and Only, the unique Son.

What makes Jesus so unique? And I want you to see three truths unfold, particularly as we think about Him as a marvel of nature in the incarnation. Three truths unfold that I think if we can get our arms and our hearts and our minds around these truths, it will radically transform the way we see Jesus, the way we relate to Jesus, the way we walk with Jesus day in and day out through this life.

Jesus is the sovereign Creator, yet He becomes a slave to His creation

The first truth is this: Jesus is the sovereign Creator, yet at the same time He becomes a slave of His creation. He is the sovereign creator and, yet, what the incarnation is giving us is a picture of one who becomes a slave of creation. The sovereign creator, a slave of creation, put them together here.

Now, what verse 7 says is, “He made Himself nothing.” Some your translations may say something more like, “He emptied Himself,” which is probably a better translation of the original language here—it literally says, “He emptied Himself.” It means that He made Himself nothing, but the words literally say, “He emptied Himself.”

Now, it’s important to be careful here. Sometimes when people read that Jesus emptied Himself they picture Him as He became a man. God became a man. They picture Him taking off some of His divine qualities. So some of the divine characteristics that He had, He emptied Himself of in order to become a man. But we know that’s not true. We saw all last week, as we dove into Scripture, how Jesus is fully God. He is in very nature God, means that His essence literally is God. He exists as God. You can’t just take off some things that you are. You are this, and Jesus is God. And so He didn’t empty Himself by taking off divine characteristics.

Instead, He emptied Himself by bringing something onto Himself. By taking the very nature of a servant. Now, that word we’ve seen already. You might circle it. It’s mentioned twice. It’s the same word in the original language of the New Testament, “morphē”—the “form”. It says, “He’s in very nature God.” You can circle it in verse 6 and then in verse 7 it says, “He took the very nature,” same word there, “of a servant.”

So what we’re seeing is that Jesus had two natures—nature of God and the nature of servant. Not in contradiction to each other but He took on the very nature of a servant. So when you picture Jesus coming to the earth and becoming a man, being born as a man, instead of picturing it like God minus something, He takes something off, it’s more God plus something. It’s God taking on human likeness, being made in human likeness.

So what we’re saying is the truth unfolded that Jesus is one person according to Philippians 2:6 and 7, one person with two different natures. Two natures; a human nature and a divine nature. We’re seeing two natures. The nature of God and the nature of a servant.

Now, throughout our time together I’m going to throw out a couple of terms that might be new to some of us and you might write these down. We are just going to be so much more intelligent after we walk out of here than we are even now. You might write it down, the first term is hypostatic union. Now, that’ll preach, all right—hypostatic union.

Now, this is a term that theologians have used to refer to this truth all throughout church history. That Jesus is one person with two natures and all throughout church history there have been a lot of questions about how this fits together—how can Jesus be one person with both a human nature and a divine nature—bring them together? This whole idea of the hypostatic union … And a lot of heresies have arisen by denying one of those two natures. Arianism and Ebionism were two heresies that denied the divinity of Christ—the deity of Christ, that He’s not completely God.

And likewise you had Apollinarism and Docetism that denied His humanity, He’s not completely human. Then you have Nestorianism that comes on the scene and basically says it’s almost like you’ve got two persons here, not two natures, but two persons. And they’re all in an attempt to wrestle with the question of how it’s possible for God to become man. And let’s be honest, it’s a pretty complex question. It’s baffling to the mind—how can God become a man? And what are the ramifications of that? Why would it be inaccurate, then, to say that Jesus is part of God as opposed to having God completely? He is God completely.

And we start to ask questions. How is this baby in a manger able to uphold all the universe as we saw in Colossians 1 as He’s sitting there crying in a manger? How does this work together? If Jesus is God and He’s praying to God while He’s here on earth then is He praying to Himself? How do you fit that together? And I’ll be honest with you, this will give you a headache if you dive into it for too long. It’s given me headaches all week long.

Let’s think for a second, together, about who Jesus is, one person with two natures.

When we don’t know what to do, we focus on what we do know to do. When we don’t know what to believe, we focus on what we do know to believe. So let’s focus on what we do know. First of all, as the Son of God, Jesus is fully God. Fully, completely. It would be inaccurate, based on what we studied last week, to say, “Jesus is in part God.” He existed being in very nature, God. He talked all throughout His ministry about how He was equal with God, “I and the Father are One. Before Abraham was born, I am.” We see testimony to His deity all throughout Scripture.

And we know that never stopped. We know that when it says He emptied Himself or made Himself nothing, that He wasn’t becoming less than God at that point, because Colossians 2:9, which we thought about some last week, says that, “The fullness of deity dwells in Jesus.” Fullness, He’s not part God and part man, no. He is fully God. We see that throughout Scripture. We dove into that last week. If you missed last week, let me encourage you to go back and listen, just to catch that picture because we can’t miss that.

Second facet, as the Son of Man, which is another title Jesus is referred to throughout Scripture, we know He is fully human. Not part human, not kind of like us, He’s completely like us. Everything that makes us human beings, Jesus had. Physically He had a body, flesh, bones, blood—He was a physical human being. He was born, we are born.

I think sometimes we have this idealized picture of Jesus’ humanity. Like for example in the Christmas carol “Away in a Manger” it says the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes. I’m not trying to ruin the Christmas carol but has anyone here ever had a baby that didn’t cry at some point? No!

He cried. He cried as a man, He certainly cried as a baby. He wiggled and screamed. He was human. And He walked and He was hungry and He got tired, all very real things that we all experience, Jesus experienced. He was fully human, physically. Not just physically but mentally. We know that He grew in His knowledge. Jesus, and this is an astounding truth, the Creator of the universe learned to crawl.

You should think about that. He learned to walk. He learned to do all the things that are basic to growing as a human being. All those things were realities for Him. Luke 2:52, “He grew in wisdom. He grew in stature.” He mentally is like us—physically, mentally, emotionally. We know that Jesus experienced a full range of emotions that we experience. He experienced extreme joy and extreme sorrow, both of them. There were times when it says Jesus was angry. Not in a way that caused Him to sin, but He experienced anger.

He also experienced happiness. We see times in Scripture where it says He was troubled in spirit—literally anguished in spirit. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, the point where He is was sweating blood because the emotion was so heavy.

So we’ve got that picture that He is fully human, not just in part like us. Now, that’s described when it says, “He took on the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness.” Now, here’s where the difference is in Philippians 2:6 and Philippians 2:7. At the beginning of verse 6, it says, “Being in very nature God.” And we saw last week how that meant He has eternally existed as God, but He was made, was being made in human likeness.

So there was a point in time, it’s what we celebrate at Christmas, when He became a man, when He took on human nature. And we know that He died and rose from the grave, a resurrected body, physical body and that He continues to be man. He ascended into heaven, we have pictures of Him in the rest of the New Testament of Him, seated at the right hand of God. Jesus is, forevermore, both fully human and fully God.

So that’s the picture we’re seeing. And we see it—those two elements of the person of Christ side by side throughout the Gospels. Think about it. Even when it was prophesied that He was going to be born in the OT—it said the virgin will give birth to a what?—son. There’s His humanity. And you will call His name Emmanuel, which means God with us His, there’s deity—humanity and deity united together. Even the virgin birth, human birth like no other, deity conception by the Holy Spirit. The picture’s going together here.

What the author here in Philippians 2—Paul—is trying to communicate to us—that Jesus reveals God completely.

He reveals God perfectly by taking on the very nature of a servant—humiliation. The readers in Philippi who were getting this letter undoubtedly were familiar with slavery and familiar with the fact that a slave has no rights, that a slave surrenders his rights, pride, anything along those lines. He doesn’t have that. And that’s the picture that Paul uses to describe Jesus.

He became a slave, a servant of His creation. He who had all glory, all dignity, all power, in heaven, He became a man and took on the nature of a servant and became a servant to His people. What does Mark 10:45 say? “The Son of man came not to be served but to”—do what?—“serve”. Now that is an infinitely beautiful truth, that Jesus came to serve you and me.

We talk about how we serve Christ but the beauty of the gospel is that He came to serve us and He came to reveal God to us. Revelation by humiliation. We know revelation is the way that God shows Himself, demonstrates His character. He reveals Himself.

Well, we know all throughout the Old Testament that you’ve got an infinite chasm or gulf or gap, a separation that cannot be bridged between man and God. Because of man’s sin we are separated from God completely and totally and no matter how moral we are, no matter how intellectual, no matter how smart we are, there’s nothing we can do to bridge that gap.

What is the only way that that gap can be bridged—the only way for deity to be united with humanity? And the answer is the incarnation. The answer is God must take the initiative to reveal Himself to us. There is nothing we can do to get to Him. God must take the initiative to reveal Himself to us and the beauty of Scripture is He doesn’t just reveal to us facts about Himself, He reveals Himself. He doesn’t just tell us who He is, He shows us who He is in Jesus Christ, in the incarnation.

That is the beauty of the incarnation. When you ask, “Where is God?” Look at the face of Christ. He is fully God and fully man. He has bridged the gap between man and God and as a result by emptying Himself, Jesus perfectly reveals both deity and humanity to all creation. He perfectly reveals both deity and humanity to all creation.

Some people say, “Well Jesus wasn’t just like us. He wasn’t human like us, because He didn’t sin.” And we’ll look at that, but don’t forget that man was originally created not to sin. Jesus perfectly reveals both humanity and deity and this is the most amazing miracle in all the Scripture and all of history.

That’s why we said last week the incarnation is the hinge on which everything turns. It’s more amazing, such a massive truth, even beyond the resurrection, even beyond the creation of the world, it’s not as amazing to think about man created in the image of God as to think about God being made in the image of man.

What a huge truth that is, that the Sovereign Creator of the universe would make Himself nothing and take on the nature of a slave of His creation. That’s the first truth.

Jesus is perfect, yet He pays the price for sin

Second truth: Jesus is perfect, yet He pays the price for sin. He’s perfect, without sin and yet He pays the price for sin. This is what makes Jesus unique.

Now we’re getting into the question not so much of who is Jesus—one person and two natures, but we’re beginning to ask the question, why? Why did God become a man? Why was it so important that Jesus become man—fully God and fully man, united together in one person? Why is that so important? And it’s important right here for the very meaning of our salvation. If this truth—Jesus fully man and Jesus fully God—is not there then we have no reason to gather together. We have no salvation, no Christianity without the incarnation.

Now, I want you to see why that is on two levels. First of all, as man, He alone can substitute for human sin.

In the book of Ruth we see a picture of a redeemer...one who pays the price to bring someone into his family or to bring this property on. That was a picture in the Old Testament. In order to be a redeemer there were three requirements.

One was you had to have the resolve to redeem, you had to have the resources to redeem and you had to have the right to redeem and that right was earned by being close in kin, by being the next of kin or a Boaz. It was kind of a situation where Boaz might not be able to redeem Ruth because there was somebody closer than him.

And so what we’ve seen throughout the Old Testament is that the redeemer has to be like those He redeems. And that’s the picture we’re seeing here. All of us in the room have sin that separates us from God and makes that gap between us and God. And God, in His holiness, in His justice, is set against sin—His character is set against sin. Which means His character is set against sinners. And God in His wrath poured out on sinners.

How can we ever have somebody that takes that wrath or is a substitute for us if God’s wrath is being poured out on humanity because of sin? It would have to be someone from within humanity who could be a substitute for that human sin. And so we’ve got the first truth that as a man He alone can substitute for human sin because He was fully man but second as God, He alone can satisfy divine wrath.

I want to put those two truths together. In 1 Timothy 2 Paul describes Jesus in the context of God’s desire to bridge the gap between God and man, to bring man to Himself, His love for His creation.

Listen starting in verse 3 of 1 Timothy 2…

“This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants”—God wants—“all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3–4).

Now listen to verse 5, “For there is one God and one mediator” (1 Tim. 2:5). You might circle that word, that’s a key word … “One God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time” (1 Tim. 2:5–6).

Now, you see how Paul here is emphasizing the humanity of Christ, “the man Christ Jesus”. And God has ordained in His desire to bring all men to Himself there would be one Mediator between God and man to bridge the gap and it’s the man, Christ Jesus.

Now, just like we would have somebody mediate or reconcile two parties today, in order to be a mediator, in order to reconcile two parties, that mediator would have to be familiar with both parties, correct? It would have to be a go-between, it would have to know this side, would have to know that side, and be able to bridge the gap between the two. If they only knew one side of the story, then there’s no way they could be a reconciler between the two sides. They have to be in the middle—a mediator—that’s fully God, fully human, Jesus in the incarnation is able to be a mediator. So He’s able to be the human substitute, “the man Christ Jesus”.

Now in the book of Hebrews chapter 2:17 it says,

Jesus was made in human likeness, like man. “… Made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17).

So it’s emphasizing His humanity, He is like us, able to be the mediator between the two in order that He might make atonement for the sins of His people. Now here’s another term i’d like to share, this is a theological term—thick theological term. It’s that word “atonement” right there, literally means propitiation—isn’t that a fun word? Let’s say that together, “propitiation.” All right, you can figure out how to spell that because I’m not going to try to do it in my head. You just write it down and sound it out—propitiation.

What that word literally means is God’s wrath being set against sin. Who can make atonement? Who can take that wrath in our place, instead of us? The ultimate problem of all of Scripture is God in His character set against sin by His wrath and His justice. So how can we who have sin come out from underneath that wrath? And what the Scripture is telling us is that Jesus alone can make atonement.

And what we see in the incarnation, in the picture of propitiation, atonement, is the fact that there is not one of us, not one of us in all of history who could stand before God and bear the brunt of the wrath of God upon our self for all men. However, if God Himself, in His divinity, God in the flesh, were to take that wrath upon Himself then He alone could satisfy the judgment. And here’s the picture we’re seeing unfold here.

The God of the universe and the cross of Jesus Christ, because of who He is and His humanity and His deity, the God of the Universe is able, at the same time, to both inflict just suffering and inflict just wrath and to endure just suffering and to endure just wrath. They are both come encapsulated together. And this is not a picture of unreasonable logic. This is a picture of unfathomable mercy.

That God became a man, Jesus, fully God and fully human and Jesus Christ took the wrath of God upon Himself so we would not have to experience His wrath and His justice. He took our place. He was like us so He could be our substitute. He is God, so He could take wrath upon Himself and the picture is the One who is perfect pays the price for our sin and the incarnation is the crux of our salvation.

Jesus is transcendent over His people, yet he identifies intimately with His people

Third truth about Jesus, the marvel of nature is that He is transcendent over His people yet He identifies intimately with His people. This is good. He is transcendent over His people yet He identifies intimately with His people.

If you’ve grown up in a Christian home all your life, and you’ve grown up in church, and you’ve not had much interaction with other religions in the world then it’s hard to grasp what an incredible truth this is. This is a truth that sets Christianity apart. It sets Jesus apart. The major religions of the world are all grounded in—whether it’s a god you call Allah, or whether it’s a higher being, ultimate reality in the universe—but it’s all based on this ultimate reality being completely other, different from us, above us, over us, and we’re down here.

And the beauty of Scripture is that His greatness is not just in His transcendence over us, His greatness is pictured in His intimate involvement with us, in us, a part of our lives. That’s Jesus and it’s what sets Him apart that He was made in human likeness. He took on the form of a man, the nature of a man. He became like us.

When it says that He made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, it doesn’t mean that Jesus exchanged the nature of God which we saw in verse 6, for the nature of a servant in verse 7. Instead it means that Jesus displayed the nature of God by taking on the nature of a servant in verse 7. He became like us and was among us and walked among us and showed us how to live by perfectly revealing humanity and deity together, He is transcendent over us. Yes, He is holy. He is completely other. At the same time He is intimately involved in our lives.

In our likeness. Think about what that means. That means first, that Jesus is familiar with all of our struggles. I want you to go with me back to Hebrews 2. We’re going to spend time in a couple more passages in Hebrews that I want you to see. He is familiar with our struggles.

When we say He is familiar with our struggles, look at Hebrews 2:18—“Because He himself,” Jesus Himself, listen to this, “he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” It’s even clearer when you get to chapter 4, look at chapter 4. We’ll start in verse 14 and then camp out on verses 15 and 16. Look at chapter 4:14, it says, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest”, listen to this, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb. 4:15–16).

This is amazing Jesus was tempted…he did not sin but He understands what temptation is. Just think about what you are tempted with on a daily basis…Jesus understands what you are struggling with.

Anyone of us, as we struggle with sin and temptation this week, can go to Jesus and know that we have a high priest who has been tempted in every way, even deeper than we ever have and the great news I have to tell you is no matter how hard that temptation is this week, there is one who has mastered it and He has the power to give you to the ability to overcome that temptation.

And He has the power to give you to overcome that struggle and you are not a slave to sin because He has mastered sin, He has mastered death, He has mastered the grave and as your Master, He now enables you to experience all that He did. He enables you to withstand temptation no matter how tough it is. The humanity of Christ is so important for our everyday lives.

He is familiar with our struggles. He is able to sympathize with us in those. He was tempted in every way and therefore, sin has no claim on us because of Him.

He’s not only familiar with our struggles He is familiar with our sorrow. You remember Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 said, “The Lord crushed Jesus for our iniquities. He was bruised for our sins. By His stripes we are healed.” And Isaiah 53 talks about how, “He was a man of deep sorrows.”

And we see that even from His ministry in the Gospels. You remember John 11 when Mary and Martha had lost their brother Lazarus and Jesus comes to them and they run out to Him just weeping. And John 11:35, it’s that easy verse that we all get to memorize when we’re kids but the truth is so incredible, it says that ‘Jesus wept’ with them. Their tears touched His tears. He’s familiar with our sorrows. He knows how you feel.

No matter what life hands, He is familiar with the sorrows that we experience. He’s familiar with our struggles and our sorrow and He’s familiar with our suffering.

Well, when you remember Psalm 22, for the sake of time we won’t turn back there this morning but remember Psalm 22. It’s a messianic Psalm. It’s giving us a picture of Christ and what unfolds in the New Testament. Psalm 22, we have just seen the author of Hebrews talk about how He is familiar with our suffering. Psalm 22:1. Anybody know what it says? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1). It’s the same question that was asked on the cross. He is familiar with our sufferings. Have you ever asked God the question why?

He is familiar with our sufferings. He is not immune to them. He is not removed from them. We don’t have a distant God who doesn’t know what it’s like to be a man. He’s familiar with the hurts and the pains we go through.

Our sufferings are not foreign to Him. They are familiar to Him. He, Jesus, is our sympathetic resonance [that’s another technical term for Jesus gets us] and when life strikes you here or there, He feels the weight of it in His person. What an amazing God we worship. He is familiar with our struggles and our sorrow and our suffering.

And then because He identifies intimately with us, because He identifies with us the Bible teaches us that He intercedes for us. Now we use the word intercede. We talk about praying, we intercede, stand in the gap. Hebrews 7:23 says, “Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.” What does this mean? “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to” (Heb. 7:25), do what?—“to interceded for them.” Did you catch that? Jesus lives today He lives always. He lives to intercede for us.

When we walk through this life and we struggle with this trial or this pain or this temptation, to know that in the middle of that struggle, in the middle of that suffering, in the middle of our sorrow that there is One who is before the Father interceding on our behalf at this very moment, that He lives to intercede for us, that when we fall and when we sin we have a Savior who stands before the Father on our account and He says, “I will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

You are not held accountable for your sin.” That when we have sorrow and we have suffering and when things don’t make sense, we have One whose spirit groans for us with words that cannot express. And when the world comes crashing down on us, Romans 8:33 and 34 says, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It’s God who justifies. Who is it that he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of the Father and is now interceding for us.”

Jesus is continually standing on your behalf. He lives to intercede for His people. The incarnation, fully human, fully God bring them together in one person and in this baby in a manger you have the most amazing, marvelous, beautiful picture that man could have never even dreamed of.

The sovereign over creation becomes a slave of creation, the One who is perfect pays the price for your sin and for my sin. And the One who is transcendent over everything in the universe is intimately involved in each one of the details of our lives.

Therefore, I invite you to trust Jesus.